Napoleon's Military Successes

To understand the military successes of Napoleons’ army during this time all the levels of war must be analysed, starting with the strategy adopted by the French army. Strategy is seen as the “overall plans, assuming responsibility for the general course of military enterprises.” Previous to the Napoleonic Wars, strategies were formed around the basis that wars were generally a limit concept, meaning it rarely affected the entire of a factions’ society. This led to wars of manoeuvre in which direct open battle would be avoided in order to prevent losses of the standing army. Nevertheless this style of warfare would have been difficult for victory to be achieved against such a number of enemies; instead Napoleon sought the offensive, to “utterly